


In which Adam gets an origin story

by Udbsken



Category: RWBY
Genre: Abusive Relationships, But like this isn’t an AU, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, F/M, What I’m saying is the timeline’s already weird and this doesn’t exactly fix it, am I stretching that definition? Mmmaybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28647078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udbsken/pseuds/Udbsken
Summary: What if Adam ... but slightly more sympathetic and also his life story
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Adam Taurus, Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus
Kudos: 2





	1. Seven

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I feel like I have to say this: Adam’s story is one with a lot of heavy themes about racism and abuse that I am very much not qualified to talk about. This is not an attempt to fix the show’s kind of subpar handling of those themes - I just think Adam’s an interesting character and wanted to try to map how he got from child slave to abusive murder man. I tried my best but take this all in the fictional context and remember this doesn’t reflect a real person’s feelings on real social issues. Thanks for your understanding gang

Adam couldn’t remember what Ovid had been talking about before the guards noticed him doing it. It had probably been the same kind of innocuous talk everyone else exchanged as they worked - any kind of meaningless small talk to put a bearable wallpaper over the unending repetition of mining. Whatever it had been, Ovid had paused to say it, maybe to gesture or laugh. His skin had been in its shedding process recently, and he complained frequently about how the peeling layer itched against the shaft of his pickaxe, so he probably would have taken an excuse to rest for a second. Whatever he’d been saying, it’s contents were erased from Adam’s mind as soon as the guards started yelling.

“Did I say you could stop working?” the nearest one said, stalking over in a way that made Adam’s eyes slide away from him instinctively.

Adam was good enough at avoiding attention when he wanted to be, at least in the mines where his horns didn’t stand out. He’d learnt the tells for when a guard was having a bad day and looking to take it out on whoever bent the rules first, and he had whip scars to count them on - the fingers being a little too quick to twitch towards their weapons, the sharpness to their voices when they made light conversation with the other guards, a telltale shadow in their eyes. 

Ovid was newer than him though. Smaller. Quieter. Looked more like a human most of the year, which seemed to disgust the guards more than anything. But he didn’t have nearly enough skill to understand when to shut up. So really, Adam thought as the guard’s hand grabbed Ovid’s shoulder and he tossed him to the ground, it was partially his fault. Adam certainly wasn’t obligated to do anything, except enjoy a brief respite from work to watch cagily with everyone else as the guard worked out his anger on whatever poor kid it was today. Adam set his jaw, keeping his head carefully turned far enough away so he wouldn’t make himself a target, but enough so he could see what was happening.

To Ovid’s credit, his quiet personality at least lent itself to taking a beating well, however much that thought flipped Adam’s stomach. He knelt pathetically where he’d been flung to, not nearly put together enough to look dignified, his head bent as he waited for the inevitable blows, making no effort to hide the shake of his hands. He wouldn’t fight back, so hopefully it would at least be quick. 

The guard grabbed the whip from his belt, raising it over his head in a savage movement. Adam should look away. He knew what happened next well enough, he didn’t need to see it again. He thought that every time - never did it though. He watched Ovid’s dark eyes flutter closed, he watched his frame grow smaller still as he curled slightly into himself. If it hadn’t been for the peeling skin curling against the curve of his wrist, he might have been enjoying an ice cream with his dad right now. It was as if the world stopped turning in that second, as if all there was on the earth was a kid Adam barely knew beyond a few conversations here and there, the tremble of his hands, and whip about to fall into his back.

The next thing Adam knew, the whip snapped loudly in his ears as it wrapped around his forearm. He was standing between the guard and Ovid, arm out to catch the whip before it had had a chance to even brush the kid behind him. The smarting was worth it for the guard’s shocked expression. Even as his eyes hardened into a glare and Adam knew the pain hadn’t even begun yet, it was still worth it. Every wound they gave him was one they wouldn’t give Ovid, or any of the other Faunus around them, for this time at least. 

The guard snarled, dropping his grip on the whip. “You think you can stand up to me? Let’s see how much fighting spirit you have left in you after this.”

He drew something black and stocky from his belt, a red glow spreading over its length from where his hand met it. Adam didn’t flinch as the guard forced his head back with his free hand, or as he raised the instrument over his face. He couldn’t stop the fear fluttering in his chest like a trapped bird, but he at least could withhold the guards the satisfaction of showing it.

He couldn’t stop the scream tearing itself from his throat when the guard brought it down onto his eye though. The pain was worse than anything Adam had felt before, a sharp, twisting feeling radiating out over his head, its tendrils twisting through his sinuses, under his skin, pulsing through his blood until it felt like he was more pain than he was a person. He’d managed to close his eye before the brand touched it, but that success was almost laughable now - an eyelid was as insubstantial a barricade as a piece of paper. His vision had already burnt away, reddening and twisting until it faded to black altogether like a burnt out film reel. Adam couldn’t tell whether the liquid he felt running down his face was tears or whatever his eyeball used to be made of. It didn’t seem like the kind of pain that would end - ending was for bruises when he mis-swung his pickaxe, or gashes on his back itching as they closed over. This pain was forever.

But even as Adam thought that, he felt the pain start to fade. At first its radius seemed to shrink back towards the brand, then that itself numbed until it was only heat, then nothing at all except a light pressure against his eye. Adam let himself breathe for the first time since the pain started, a strangled gasp that didn’t sound like his voice. His vision wasn’t back, but he let his uninjured eye flutter open, taking in the guard’s furrowed brow, the blue-white ice of the caves overhead that seemed to glow from inside, the hot red of the brand still pressed to his eye. It probably should have concerned Adam more that he’d stopped feeling the pain. That seemed bad right? But he felt oddly calm, divorced from the panicked crying child he’d been a second ago. Almost strong.

Slowly, deliberately, Adam brought a hand to the guard’s arm holding the brand and pushed it away from him as hard as he could. He knew logically that should have only gotten him laughed at, but instead the arm jerked back like it had been shoved by an incredible force, the brand clattering to the ground, fading back to black as it left its heat source. The guard stumbled backwards, face sharp in pain as he held his arm at an unnatural angle. 

“That feral little animal broke my arm,” the guard spat, half anger, half disbelief.

“Stupid godsdamned kid awoke his semblance,” Adam heard the other guards mutter behind him, the familiar sound of weapons being drawn from their sides.

Adam stayed where he was, staring down the human with the arm he broke with the ghost of a smile on his face. Even now, even as just a stunted seven year old blind in one eye, tear tracks still on his face, surrounded by armed guards who would no doubt deliver a beating he wouldn’t be able to fight off, he felt powerful. For the first time since he’d arrived in these mines, he felt in control, even if it was just for a fleeting second. Then a baton met the side of his head and it all fell apart.

*

“And it really doesn’t hurt?” Ovid said for what must have been the hundredth time.

Adam shook his head. He barely remembered what had happened between breaking the guard’s arm and properly coming to in confinement - he still hadn’t felt any pain since the branding, so it had been a dreamlike drift in and out of consciousness. His eye wasn’t bandaged, but he vaguely remembered someone putting some sort of salve on it to prevent infection, probably just so the Schnee Dust Company wouldn’t have to pay any other medical costs. Ovid didn’t say what he’d done to get himself thrown in the cell with Adam, but he could see the bruise purpling the dark skin around his eye, so he could guess. 

Ovid rubbed his hand against the texture of the ice wall, a nervous gesture Adam had notice him use over the past few days, the skin on his palm peeling more at the friction. 

“So that’s your semblance? You can’t feel your injuries?” Ovid said.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

As semblances go, that wasn’t a bad one. Honestly it had seemed to Adam like he’d never get a semblance. The guards were the ones with semblances - a couple of other miners had shown him their semblance privately, but they got hit if they did it during work hours. Semblances were something for humans to use, another weapon for their belts. Adam felt a private bubble of pride in his chest that he’d woken up his own, however nonchalant he was trying to act about it. This was something that was his, something that the guards couldn’t yell or beat out of him. He had his own weapon. Plus there was that strange strength that had caused the guard’s arm to whip backwards like it’d been hit with a bomb. 

“You can still get injuries though, even if you can’t feel them.” Ovid said with something like sternness, which was almost cute coming from his small frame, “You can’t do something reckless like breaking the guards’ arms, Adam, that’s insane. They’ll kill you.”

“And risk a lawsuit?” Adam said dryly, waving off his protests, “Seriously, I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt, right? I’m not dead, or blind. Plus I have my semblance now.” it took effort not to beam with pride at ‘my semblance’, “I’ve looked after myself up until now; I can keep doing it.”

Ovid nodded, slowly at first, then faster, like he was convincing himself. “Thank you Adam,” he said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

Adam almost asked for what before he remembered who he had taken a brand to the eye for. In all honesty he hadn’t really done it for Ovid, although he wasn’t going to tell him that. He did like him, but he barely knew him, so it wasn’t like they could consider themself friends, in the classical sense at least. In Ovid he’d seen the hundreds of kids the guards had beaten before him, and the hundreds they’d beat after, and he’d just seen red. Adam had protected him just to protect someone. To show the guards someone would. That Faunuses weren’t the self interested, instinct driven animals that they insulted them with. That guard would have to heal that bone for however many months it took with the knowledge that it was a Faunus that gave it to him, and a kid at that. Adam hoped it hurt. Because his eye sure didn’t. The thought brought a grim smile to his lips. 


	2. Fifteen

“You’re planning something, aren’t you.”

Adam jumped, looking up at the older woman next to him in surprise. He thought he remembered her introducing herself as Avery at some point, but he didn’t know her well. She had a kind face though, smile lines framing her eyes, which were soft and sad more often than they weren’t. Her hair, thin and graying at the roots, fell in her eyes as she turned her head to look at him, swinging just often enough to make it seem like she was working. Clearly she was well practiced at that specific art. 

“I can always tell.” Avery continued, “You keep looking at the guards like you’re sizing them up when you think they won’t notice, and the way you’re holding your pickaxe, adjusting it in your hands like you’re trying to figure out how you’d swing it at someone’s head. I’ve seen the signs before.”

Adam looked down at his hands, slightly embarrassed to have been read so easily. If this random woman could tell, surely the humans would be able to too - then again if they had they probably would have done something to stop him.

“Yeah fine,” Adam admitted to her, quiet enough that the humans wouldn’t overhear, “So what? You don’t think I can do it?”

Avery looked at him carefully, as if she was picturing whoever the others she’d seen plotting escapes were beside him. 

“It’s possible.” she said eventually, taking another swing at the vein of dust in front of her, “They call themselves guards, but really they’re just here to prevent riots and make sure everyone’s working. They’re not used to violent escape attempts. The last one was a while ago too, so you’d probably throw them off their guard.” 

Adam flipped the pickaxe around in his hand, weighing it before slamming it into the wall, dislodging a chunk of dust as he did so, sending slivers of ice dusting the air like shimmering light. She sounded experienced, and if she thought he could do it - he bit his lip to stop it from quirking upwards. 

“You shouldn’t do it though,” Avery added, almost noncommittally.

Adam looked at her sharply. As she spoke, Avery retrieved the dust shard he’d dropped, running a finger over the rough cobalt surface. At the end of the day it would be transported to the factories with the others, made smooth and palatable and sold to rich huntsmen to use in their little vanity plays. It seemed right in a painfully twisted way, for humans to be living off a network of Faunus suffering below their very feet. 

“This stuff - this fighting and killing stuff - it changes people, beyond repair. I’ve seen it done. You’re still just a kid. You shouldn’t have to do something like this.” she tossed the dust into the closest cart, where it skittered over the top of the others.

“I was still just a kid when I was put here too - didn’t stop them treating me like a monster.” 

Avery sighed. “I’ve seen that look before too. I can’t convince you, can I.”

Adam clenched his jaw and swung the pickaxe again, envisioning blood instead of a shower of ice crystals stemming from the point of contact. As he was about to retrieve it, Avery put a hand on the handle, stopping him. Adam stared at it, watching as her fingernails curled slightly out from her fingertips, steadying her grip on the pickaxe. Retractable, like a cat’s.

“That’s the reason you’re imprisoned down here. Your fingernails.” Adam said softly, “That’s not fair.”

“Nothing in the world is,” Avery replied, her eyes flickering to Adam’s blind one.

The mines didn’t give them access to something as useless as mirrors, but Adam had paid enough attention to cutlery and polished metal to know what it looked like. His eye was a mess of scar tissue as big as a handprint, the brand standing out in an ugly rusted blood colour, his eye twisting the letters until they were barely discernible as a logo unless you knew what to look for. His eye still opened and was intact, which he appreciated, even with the red sclera. There was no real point to keeping a sightless eye open, but he did it anyway. A small act of rebellion against letting the brand be readable.

“Let this be the closest we get.” Avery said, “Please.”

Adam hesitated for a second, then released the pickaxe, letting her heft it in a practiced hand. She didn’t thank him - this wasn’t the sort of thing you thanked someone for - but she nodded. She was sacrificing a lot for the sake of a stranger, Adam knew that. There were no words in language he could use to repay her for that. Instead, he just nodded back. _I won’t waste this chance,_ he promised her silently. _I’ll start living for you._

She dropped her pickaxe against the cavern wall, then walked towards the closest guard, as calmly as if she was going to negotiate a union dispute. The human frowned at the interruption from his conversation, but before he could speak Avery swung the pickaxe in a smooth, beautiful arc that cleanly caved in his ribcage. Chaos erupted before the first blood had even spilled on the ground, and Adam didn’t have time to stick around to watch it.

On an impulse, he raised his fist to the ceiling, looking back at the stretch of stunned miners behind him. 

“Run.”

Then he took his own advice and sprinted for the cave mouth, slipping under the humans’ hands easily in the confusion. He’d only seen the exit once when he was too young to remember it properly, but as he ran through the slowly lightening tunnels, his feet almost sliding on the ice beneath him, it was as if his child self was running alongside him, sharing the same breathless smile as he led them to freedom. Behind him, Adam could hear the thumping of dozens of other feet, a few whooping in exhilaration. His heartbeat was unsteady in his throat as he mounted the incline, and then, finally, stepped out into open air. 

The other miners rushed out around him like water in a stream, but Adam was stopped still at the entrance, staring. The twilight sky was purple, reaching blue where it met the white horizon, a palette of colours Adam had almost forgotten existed. Soft snowfall had started, the cold biting at his exposed arms and reddening his fingers. Mining equipment spotted the landscape, hulking monoliths in bright orange and yellow, stretching towards the sky. Adam laughed into the wind, desperately, maddeningly alive. It almost didn’t feel real, like any moment he’d startle himself awake from a fragile dream. But there was the cold, and the people pushing past him, and the echo of yelling in the mines reminding him he didn’t have long to stand around.

So he ran forwards, as first faltering, then steady, following the others instead of leading them, forwards into the most beautiful dusk he’d ever seen.


	3. Seventeen

* * *

Adam was glad to step onto the docks of Menagerie. At first the smell of sea air and gentle rocking of the boat had been novel, but they quickly became tiring as the trip wore on. Solid ground was good to see, even if it was an unfamiliar island. Adam paused on the docks, looking out over the town. 

So this was the Faunus’ chosen banishment then. It was every bit the colourful tropical town he’d expected from the stories. Fabric awnings dotted the waterline, framing market stalls and cafe tables. It felt like the kind of place perpetually shaded in dappled sunlight. 

Adam hadn’t seen so many Faunus in one place since the mines. It was some kind of refreshing to see them flaunt their animal traits so boldly like they were a fashion accessory instead of the shameful brand Faunus in other kingdoms seemed to consider them. _Or, you know, a normal body part._ It wasn’t quite enough to negate the cognitive dissonance of seeing Faunus milling so carefree around their tropical paradise, as if there was no such thing as a human in the world. 

“New here?” a voice came from next to him.

Adam looked down to find a young woman wearing a yellow sarong and a leopard pattern peppering her shoulders and upper arm like sun spots. 

“Every Faunus stares a bit when they first come to Menagerie, it’s alright.” she smiled as if Adam had been embarrassed, “It’s beautiful isn’t it? Oh, I’m waiting for my sister; I don’t have a habit of bothering people on the docks, I promise.”

She gestured to the boat Adam had come from. 

“Beautiful certainly describes it,” Adam said, looking out over the patchwork beachscape.

“Yeah I know.” she said fondly, “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

 _That’d explain the disposition_ , Adam thought wryly.

“You picked a good time for it. You never want to visit in winter; the water gets freezing.” she put her hands on her hips, “So, what kingdom are you from?”

Technically the correct answer was Atlas, but Adam was loathe to let that place leave even more of a mark on him than it already had. The woman probably wouldn’t ask that question if she could see his eye, but he had black cloth wrapped around it like he normally did in unfamiliar places, and she’d only curiously glanced at it the normal amount.

“Here and there.” Adam answered, “I’m a bit of a nomad.”

Her eyes lit up. “Really? That’s so cool - I wish I had an exciting life like that.”

 _No you don’t._ Adam was saved from having to come up with a polite response by the arrival of her sister, a tall girl with the same colour of hair and soft black tipped leopard ears who brushed past him and threw her arms around her. 

“Miss me, moron?” the sister said into her hair. 

“I wept myself to sleep every night.” the woman said with mock seriousness, untangling herself, “Oh sorry,” she said brightly to Adam, “I’ll see you around, okay? Enjoy Menagerie!”

“You as well,” he said, taking the cue to dismiss himself from the conversation. 

He headed off the port towards the soft white sand of the land, leaving the woman to ask her sister how Minstrel was. Menagerie, as he quickly discovered, was accurate to its first impression, a tropical town sprawling through the trees like a multicoloured fungus. He found a market to wander through, various people hawking everything from homemade ceramics to fresh seafood, although there was a noticeable lack of weapons. Most markets had at least a few stalls for combat equipment. Then again, he assumed that was part of Menagerie’s illusory peace.

That was why he was so surprised to see a familiar logo set up in a town square - a red wolf silhouette framed between three claw marks, stenciled onto a white wooden board, surrounded by a small group of people lofting other signs reading things like ‘Faunus rights NOW’ and ‘fight for our brothers and sisters’. Adam had seen the logo before, at peaceful protests and sit ins; had watched the cops tear down banners printed with it. One time they set fire to one. Adam hadn’t stuck around to see what they did to the protestors. 

“Why would you hold a White Fang rally in Menagerie?” he said, half to himself and half because he was close enough now for the White Fang members to be in earshot.

One girl turned at the question, shaking a handful of pamphlets at him, the loose waves of her hair falling off her shoulder as she did so. She was shorter than him, which wasn’t hard, and looked younger, which struck Adam as odd. Most White Fang members he’d seen were adults. Her eyes lent her a bit of marturity though - the irises seemed to glow from the inside with a quiet anger, like they were lit from behind with a fire. 

“You’d be surprised.” she said, “We get a lot of recruits from drives like this. The White Fang was started here, you know.”

“It just feels like you’re preaching to the wrong crowd,” Adam said, recalling soft mundanity that had settled over the town. 

This wasn’t the kind of place where Faunus felt the heavy hand of humans on their backs. 

The girl crossed her arms, eyeing Adam like he’d size up an opponent in a fight. “You’re from the kingdoms huh.” she said without a question, “Well not everyone buries their head in the sand about this stuff. The White Fang has members all over Remnant. _Including_ Menagerie.”

Adam shrugged in an attempt to back out of whatever argument he’d started.

The girl pursed her lips, then withdrew her pamphlets and held one out to him, the White Fang logo emblazoned over the front. 

“If you’re so concerned about it, why don’t you come along to our rally tonight?” she offered.

Adam almost laughed. “Oh, no I’m good. I’m not interested in joining an organisation like this.”

The girl raised her eyebrows sharply. “You’re not interested in stopping Faunus oppression?”

“Come on; it’s not stopping anything. You’re making a show of it so you can feel like you’ve done something then go back to the safety of your summer homes in Menagerie. Which is fine - it’s just not for me.”

“Do you really think doing nothing’s going to accomplish something better? At least we’re trying,” the girl said, her eyes narrow.

“I feel like if you were actually trying you would have made some progress by now.” Adam said.

The girl huffed, then pushed the pamphlet against his chest. “That settles it. You’re coming to the rally, kingdom boy. Hear us out first, then we can get into an argument about it. Okay?”

Adam raised his eyes skyward, but still took the pamphlet from her. She looked smug. 

“Okay then. My name’s Blake,” she said, sticking out her now empty hand.

“Adam,” Adam said, not taking it.

“Nice to meet you then,” she said, dropping the hand, “Oh and also Adam?” the fire in her yellow eyes burned a little brighter, “I am _not_ just doing this for show. Don’t you ever say something like that to me again.” 

She lingered on him for a second before turning decisively back to the other White Fang members, leaving Adam with a pamphlet in his hand and a bemusing lightness to his chest.

*

Adam wasn’t really sure why he’d come to the rally - probably something between obligation and curiosity if he had to take a guess at it. It turned out to be a large sparsely decorated warehouse space (who could say what Menagerie would store in a warehouse though - there was every chance it was just a hall rented out for events). 

The crowd consisted of a few dozen people, a few who clearly knew each other already talking amicably, the more sociable loners striking up conversations with anyone who would tolerate them. The rest milled around the snack table as if there was anything on it better than punch Adam was already nursing half a glass of and some quickly staling sandwiches, or tried to look occupied on their scrolls. The White Fang members were on a raised wooden stage that someone had spray painted their logo onto, talking quietly amongst themselves. Blake had grinned at him when he arrived, but hadn’t said anything, so all there was for Adam to do was to wait and vaguely wonder what he was doing here. 

Fortunately for him, the rally didn’t take very long to begin. A woman strode onstage to cheers from the White Fang people and a couple of audience members, a hush falling over the rest of the crowd. Adam could see why they had quieted - the woman managed to look imposing even with her small stature. Tattooed tiger stripes ran up her arms - Adam didn’t think it was unusual for some White Fang members to get cosmetic ‘second traits’, like coloured contacts, but this seemed more like a show of strength than anything else. She was daring people to come try their luck against her, and against the whole White Fang by extension. Pretty impressive for the leader of a peaceful resistance group.

“My fellow Faunus.” the woman’s voice commanded the respect of the whole room. Even without a microphone, it was unshakably steady, the trace of a smile beneath the calm. A voice that spoke of trust and kinship.

“My name is Sienna Khan, and I’m the leader of the White Fang. I’m not sure how much you know about us already. I’d like to think we’ve made enough of a difference to be common knowledge to all Faunus even outside Menagerie, but revolutions built on hope hardly have the stablest foundation. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of you came here with doubts about us, especially with the upset we caused here after I took over the work the Belladonnas started.”

Blake looked away quickly at that, noticeable among the sea of rapt attention the other White Fang members were giving their leader. 

“It isn’t my place to put those doubts to rest.” Sienna continued, “I’m here to share the ambitions of the White Fang with you - then the decision of whether you’d like to help us achieve it is yours alone to make. 

“There have been many ideas, in the past, about what the White Fang should be. After all, the Faunus are a complicated people with a rich and diverse history, and we have many needs regarding our relationship with the humans. I’m sure many of you know that Ghira’s original intent was for the White Fang to be a bridge between humans and Faunus. It was an admirable goal, but evidently not a sustainable one. It’s become clear to me that until the humans stop benefiting from treating us like cattle, our needs are inherently incompatible.”

A small cheer rose up from the White Fang, but some members remained staunchly silent, Blake included. Adam wondered whether that was a universally shared opinion.

“Others have suggested the White Fang be a weapon for Faunus-kind to protect themselves with. I’ve made my stance on this clear in the past, and I continue to stand by it - while I’m not against using violence as necessary if the situation demands it, I think currently an offensive would only be counterproductive to our cause. My vision of the White Fang isn’t quite with those people either.

“To me the White Fang are a voice.” Sienna said, “A voice not only for our members, but for all Faunus. A voice, especially, for those of us who are unable to speak for ourselves - those who the humans have subjugated to the point they are unable to even scream.”

An image arose in Adam’s mind - his child’s arm, reaching out desperately to anyone in the Atlas streets as the SDC employee dragged him onto a truck with the other homeless Faunus she’d collected; a woman tucking her tiger tail under her skirt and curling into her human partner’s arm, as if she could stop Adam from existing if she just looked away. His chest burned with the memory.

“We brought you here today to ask you to join that voice. But it isn’t always easy to find the strength to yell back; I understand that. So I want you to know that whatever it is you choose, and whatever it is your fellow Faunus choose, even if that is to stand against us, we will always speak for you. There isn’t a Faunus in the world we’d abandon - I’ll make that promise to you here personally.” she accepted a glass from one of the White Fang members and raised it to the ceiling, the overhead lights turning the liquid to scarlet, “To the White Fang. To all the Faunus, here and everywhere else in Remnant. May we be unable to be silenced.”

“And unable to stopped,” Adam added, raising his own glass.

Sienna acknowledged him with a small smile before the crowd erupted into cheers, the non-White Fang members getting caught up only seconds after the others. Even the ones that were quiet before howled and clapped now, drowning glasses of punch like they were the finest alcohol. It was difficult not to feel awash in the elation of the moment, the warehouse in the centre of a darkened beach town transformed into a banquet hall set amongst a victorious battleground.

In the commotion Adam forgot Blake existed until she appeared next to him, eyes dancing and cheeks flushed slightly.

“Can I take it from your outburst you’re going to join?” she said, the satisfied note in her smile almost enough to get to him to refuse.

Adam sighed. “Fine. Yes. You can thank your leader later.”

Blake’s smile grew. “I win the argument then, Adam. I’ll enjoy rubbing it in your face when you join the White Fang.”

She twirled, running back to a clump of the other members, who were in the middle of laughing about something, gesturing a non-member with webbed fingers over to join them. Adam shrugged at no one, then downed the rest of his punch to hide the slight smile on his face.


	4. Eighteen

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Blake said, weighing the half-brick she held in her hands. 

“Have I ever lead you astray before?” Adam said, the ghost of a laugh trailing a cloud of cold breath into the air.

Blake continued to frown at the brick instead of joking back, which meant she must have really been worried. That made one of them then, considering the enthusiasm of the other White Fang members. This was one of their first riots, and they seemed to take the attitude of causing general chaos first and thinking about their social cause second. A couple of people had grabbed spray paint bottles to paper storefronts with their messages - Adam could hear them yelling artistic critiques at the one who was trying to draw their logo. Someone had started a trash fire behind them, which took the edge off the night chill at least, and another few had gone into the dust store with baseball bats and grins on their faces. Adam had seen the frosted glass SDC snowflake on the window and decided he wanted it smashed, so he dragged Blake over by the wrist to do the honours. Now they were waiting for her to get up the nerve to do it. 

“Doesn’t this kind of - I mean, doesn’t this make us as bad as them?” Blake said, looking up at him. 

Adam remembered back to the mines, every person he saw beaten and spat on and called a filthy animal, every name he’d learnt and then forgotten, every wound he’d felt burn with pain as it closed over, and after that every one he hadn’t because he’d been too much of a coward to be anything other than the docile little calf they’d raised him to be. 

He stared into Blake’s eyes and gave voice to a truth he’d always known, as deep and sure in his chest as his own name.

“There’s nothing you could do or say in your whole lifetime that could make you as bad as them, Blake,” he said. 

Blake’s eyebrows furrowed for a second, like she was parsing over his words, trying to find seeds of truth between them. Then she took a deep breath and tossed the brick. 

Gambol Shroud had given her confidence at aiming - the brick sailed cleanly through the centre of the snowflake, the glass erupting around it as it made contact. The glass caught the store light as it fell to the ground, turning it to a shower of golden rain. Blake let out a laugh, like she’d finally released the wild thing in her chest, and it had come flying out in the form of shattered glass covering everything in that godsdamned store. 

“Hell yeah.” Adam said approvingly, “Humans better run scared from the fury of Blake Belladonna.”

Blake grinned, her breath hissing wispily out from between her teeth, then she brought her arms to rest on Adam’s shoulders and before he knew it her mouth was against his. Adam froze, a thousand thoughts running through his mind at once. Blake was sixteen, she didn’t know what she was doing, and he still hadn’t shared every part of the mess that he was yet, and there was everything with the White Fang and the Faunus and maybe it wasn’t even a romance kiss at all, she was excited and full of adrenaline and maybe he had just happened to be the friend she was standing next to as she was.

But also it was _Blake._ Blake, who was strong and fierce and funny and quicksilver in a fight, with a tongue sharp enough to burn someone to the ground then turn around and gush about her favourite book, and she was kissing him, that fire in her eyes bright and feral and beautiful and close enough that if he leaned forward he could feel her eyelashes on his face, and she was here and she tasted of victory and _godsdamnit._ So Adam kissed her back, wrapping his hands around her waist, letting her lead where she wanted to push forwards or break apart. The least he could do was be gentle against the ferocious freedom she gave him, telltale of a first kiss. Actually it was his first as well, but Blake didn’t need to know that. The White Fang members inside the store had cheered when Blake smashed the window and did so again to see them kiss, but Adam was content to let them fade away with everything else, until his world was just Blake, so warm and virile he could almost feel her heartbeat in his ears, like for one glorious second the edges of their personhood blurred and they let each other in, just a little. 

Blake broke them apart, stumbling back with a grin so hard it was like she couldn’t stop, her left ear twitching manically. 

“That was amazing,” she said, then repeated it, this time crowing it to the broken moon, “That was amazing!”

Adam laughed. “The kiss or the window?”

“ _Everything._ ”

Adam looked at the store window, now just stray shards clinging to the frame and a scattering of silver-gold setting the floor alight with its glow. The fact that they’d turned the snowflake into that made his chest almost ache with a strong, feral feeling that made him want to scream to the sky as well. It felt something like pride.

“You did that Blake.” he said, looking back at her, “You were the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”


	5. Nineteen

Adam shoved the door open without bothering to knock. He figured they knew each other well enough to ignore little boundaries like doors. Evidently Ilya did not agree, because she yelped, turned camouflage, and made a grab for her weapon, which thwarted her valiant efforts by being metres away. 

“Oh sorry, were you busy?” Adam said, smiling at her panic and leaning against the door frame. 

She glared at him and restored herself to her usual colour palette. “Swear to the Brothers, Taurus, if I die of a heart attack because of you, I’m gonna haunt you for the rest of your days.”

He shrugged. “Sounds like a pretty boring way for you to spend the rest of my days if I’m honest. You’d think you’d have better things to do as a ghost.” he blinked, realising what the slight difference that had been bugging him since he came in was, “You let your hair down?”

Ilya tossed her ponytail over one shoulder so he could see it. She usually kept it in a bun or braid when she was fighting, citing practicality, and when it was loose it was surprisingly long, a stretch of dark caramel that curved in on itself at the end. 

“I’m allowed to try out different hairstyles you know,” she said defensively.

“I like it.” Adam said, “The way it curls up at the end kind of looks like a chameleon tail; it’s cute.”

“Between you and me, it’s hairspray. Don’t you _dare_ tell Blake that though.” she said, putting a threat into the second sentence.

“Oh? Are you worried about whether my long term girlfriend will like it?”

Ilya groaned, which really was just rewarding his insistence on calling Blake his girlfriend whenever he wanted to annoy her. 

“It’s not like six months is even that long term,” she said, ever the one to keep track of how long someone else’s relationship had gone for.

“How long did you date her then?” 

The spots on Ilya’s face went beetroot. “You’re a jerk,” she said, not without fondness.

“Ah, you love it.” Adam said with a wave of his hand, “Anyway, you shouldn’t worry. Blake’ll love it, it looks great on you.”

“Like I’d come to you for fashion advice.” Ilya grumbled. To Adam’s mock affronted look she said flatly: “You wear all black. Plus an eyepatch when I first met you.”

Adam left his face bare almost all the time now, which some people had taken better than others. Even Blake had to smother a gasp the first time she saw it, and it took her days to get their dynamic back to normal. Ilya had been surprisingly stoic when he showed her the brand for the first time, just flattening her mouth and telling him quietly later about her parents. Adam hadn’t been sure what to say to that, but she’d just shaken her head and said there was nothing to say. _This probably isn’t worth anything,_ she’d said, _but I’m sorry that happened to you_. 

Now he placed a hand on his heart. “You wound me, Miss Amitola. I’m wounded.”

“Are we wounding Adam?” Blake said behind him, “I’m in.”

“No one knocks around here,” Ilya complained, although Adam could tell she was faking it. Ilya was never upset to see Blake. 

“Oh, Ilya!” Blake brightened when she properly entered the room, “Your hair! I love it down like that.”

This time Ilya failed to conceal her blush. “Well, I suppose if it got two ‘yes’s it’s presentable enough for combat.”

Blake nodded sagely. “That’s always a good strategy. Look cute, throws your enemies off their game.”

“Is that why you grew your hair out?” Adam asked, having voiced his approval for her soft new hairstyle several times previously, usually while running his fingers through it.

“That,” she winked at him, “and because long hair looks great on me.” she clapped her hands together, “Now! I came here for two reasons. Firstly because Sienna’s called a meeting and if we’re late again I’m gonna kill both of you -“

“Oh right,” Adam said, remembering suddenly what it was he’d come here to tell Ilya.

“- And secondly because I wanted to show you guys this before she unveils them.”

On ‘this’ she pulled a strip of white out of her bag and passed it to Adam, who turned the smooth hard material over in his hands, recognising the design. 

“They made them already?” Adam said, holding the Grimm mask out in front of him.

Blake nodded as he handed it to Ilya to inspect. “Cool right? If a bit needlessly dramatic. Much like the guy who pitched them really.”

Adam gave her an exaggerated eye roll as Ilya said: “How did you get your hands on one of these before Sienna presented them?”

Blake took it back, stashing it away. “Turns out shadow clones are also useful for thievery purposes.”

“That’s my girl,” Adam said, kissing the side of her forehead.

She smiled at him, then heel turned towards the door. “Alright, we do actually need to go because I was being serious about the murder thing. If I have to hear another lecture about responsibility I’m going to lose it.” 

Adam shot Ilya a grin behind her back and they both followed her out into the hallway.


	6. Seventeen

Blake almost wished he hit her. Maybe then she’d at least feel justified about the creeping unease she felt every time she heard his voice. But Adam insisted on touching her softly and every time he did she felt more and more like a crazy person. 

It wasn’t like he wasn’t aggressive - Adam had never been the type of person to let a hit slide without hitting back. He’d told her once that he thought his semblance was almost karmic - his enemies having to take back the damage they gave him. _It suits you,_ Blake had said. Now she wasn’t so sure it did. Sometimes she felt like all he was doing was throwing people’s self defence back in their faces.

He barely even yelled at her, actually. He used to, the normal amount for a relationship, Blake would guess. But eventually she stopped yelling back and he started using this soft manipulative tone that crept into her ear and told her she was the one in the wrong. Blake wasn’t sure exactly when that had appeared, and that made it feel like it was her fault too. 

Sometimes she wondered if he was even aware he was doing it, the weird manipulative thing. Surely he must, but then did that mean he hated her? When did he stop loving her? Did he ever? 

Those thoughts just kept chasing around her brain and distracting her from the fact she was in the middle of a robbery. Blake brought a hand to her head and stared down at the unconscious shopkeeper at her feet. This White Fang stuff was getting worse, right? At this point Blake had trouble telling whether anything was in her head anymore. 

She’d heard about dust store robberies on TV, in big enough quantities that she was pretty sure most of them weren’t White Fang branded. So then, what, they were on the same level as petty thieves now? The line between what they were doing and liberating the Faunus was getting harder and harder to draw.

 _Maybe_ , she thought as she dragged the guard a safe distance away from the cases of dust, _this is just an extreme method of payback._ A lot of Faunus had been hurt by the SDC and their stupid dust mines after all. Adam always got hard and distant when he thought about where the scar on his eye had come from. Blake had thought Sienna was better than that. Then again, Blake had thought a lot of things, and it was starting to look like she’d been wrong about most of them. 

It was actually working though, and that made her feel almost as stupid and crazy as Adam did. Or some kind of working anyway. Was servers’ eyes sliding off her at the sight of her ears better or worse than them refusing to serve her? Was it better to have slurs thrown at her on the street, or to have conversations quiet as they passed her, then hear whisperings of White Fang terrorists behind her back? Gods, justice had been such a simple concept when she was a kid. How had it gotten so complicated in just five years?

Blake raised Gambol Shroud over the dust tubes on the wall and slammed the hilt into them, shattering the glass and sending precious reserves spilling onto the floor, the colours mixing and flowing into each other around her feet. She could have stolen them if she’d wanted to - it would have been easy to collect and carry a couple of cannisters, and the White Fang probably could have used them too. Whoever else was robbing dust stores was making it harder and harder to get dust legally. But Blake wasn’t even sure she wanted the White Fang to use dust anymore. Besides, let their power become paint on a showroom floor. That’d probably send a better message than stealing it anyway. _You killed them for nothing_. Yeah, sounded right to Blake’s ears.

She cast another glance at the shopkeep, making sure she could still see the rise and fall of his chest, then walked out of the open door. As the night air hit her in full, she tugged the Grimm mask off her face, tossing it aside where it skittered across the cobblestone tiles. Calling card? Sure. She’d call it that.


	7. Twenty one

“Oh,” Adam said aloud, staring down at the swords impaling him.

He couldn’t feel them, beyond the vague coolness of metal against his skin and blood running from the wound, but they didn’t exactly look like they were protruding from - survivable places. 

Blake pulled Gambol Shroud out of his chest, soaked in his blood, and stepped back, as if she was offering to let him leave. Brothers, Adam might have laughed if he didn’t feel so tired and heavy. Everything he did, and this was how it ended. He would have hoped for something less pathetic. 

He staggered forwards a few steps before his legs gave way beneath him and he fell to his knees, staring out at the waterfall before him. His vision of it was blurring, doubling, reminding him of how he lost sight in the other one. At least this time it didn’t hurt. Nothing could ever godsdamn hurt Adam Taurus, could it. Except when Blake left him and he felt like his heart was tearing itself apart inside his chest. Except when Blake took that blonde girl’s hand like it was an anchor and she was drowning in a whirlpool and he knew she’d never take his hand like that again and maybe she never even did. Except when Blake stabbed him through the chest without so much as pausing because she’d rather he was dead than have to spend even so much as one more second looking at him. _Huh, how’s that, darling? You broke my semblance._

He wasn’t able to keep upright any longer; the heaviness pulled him forward until he had pitched over the edge of the waterfall, staring up at the sky as he fell. If he had to die, he wished he could have done it looking at the night sky. Instead all he had was this too-bright cornflower expanse, and the memory of Blake. He remembered her eyes as she fought him, narrow and angry and with a fire fiercer than it had been for a while before she’d left. That fire …

 _Oh,_ he thought again, understanding finally dawning on him far too late to matter.

Godsdamn Blake. He guessed if his death couldn’t be poetic or beautiful, he could at least count on her to make sure it was just. It was less than he deserved. But he still hoped it was enough. For Ovid and Avery and the kids he couldn’t protect and the ones he led to freedom, for Ilya, for Sienna, for the Faunus who died at his hand, for the ones whose lives he ruined, hell, for that blonde one armed girl he hoped would make Blake happy where he couldn’t. For Blake, always and forever. He hoped it was enough. 

Then, he fell into white oblivion.


End file.
